Premier Inc. Partners with Pensiamo Inc. and UPMC to Launch AI-Powered Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Solution

Premier Inc. and Pensiamo Inc. have partnered to launch a new pharmaceutical supply chain solution that was co-developed with UPMC, a world-renowned healthcare provider and insurer.

CognitiveRx™ is a comprehensive pharmaceutical supply chain solution that predicts, manages and solves for challenges related to drug shortages, inflation, declining reimbursement and other factors impacting the life sciences supply chain. UPMC, which owns Pensiamo, will be the first to implement CognitiveRx to more precisely monitor market demand signals, predict shortage risk and recommend inventory levels that support its ability to insulate patient care from supply disruption.

“CognitiveRx provides access to market exclusive recommendations that predict drug supply disruption risk, and support the rapid identification of clinical, purchasing and inventory solutions,” said Jim Szilagy, President and CEO of Pensiamo and Chief Supply Chain Officer for UPMC. “The teams at Pensiamo and UPMC have developed a truly innovative tool, and we are excited to partner with Premier to launch it. We believe it will help UPMC and other healthcare organizations advance cost management and drug shortage mitigation strategies to further bend the cost curve.”

Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), CognitiveRx uses machine learning to bring speed and reliability to the process of controlling and reducing pharmaceutical costs. Specifically, CognitiveRx sends real-time “buy-right” signals to direct procurement activities and recommend formulary management strategies for buying the most advantageous products. By replacing manual data manipulation and integrating siloed data sources, the solution enables rapid insights on price increase predictions, egregious price changes and margin capture opportunities.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Pensiamo and UPMC on the launch of CognitiveRx,” said David A. Hargraves, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Premier. “This collaboration is an excellent complement to Premier’s market-leading suite of supply chain technologies that are designed to better inform overall contracting and sourcing processes. As more health systems adopt it, we will continue to improve pharmaceutical costs and ensure patients across the country have the medication they need when they need it.”

As part of the partnership, Premier will offer CognitiveRx to hospitals and health systems and provide market exclusive purchasing recommendations to maximize high volume opportunities. CognitiveRx is supported by a specialized team of advanced data managers, data scientists and pharmacy professionals who automate the intake and review of purchase data, garner insights, generate machine learning algorithms and develop AI models to enable an optimal pharmacy supply chain strategy.

The financial terms of this agreement are not being disclosed.